Social media monitoring often gets lumped into very traditional departments inside organizations, and when this happens, certain aspects of the practice can be overlooked. There are many features of social media monitoring beyond its ability to help manage your brand’s reputation via customer service. When brands come to Ignite asking for help with 'social media monitoring', we think holistically with the understanding that the practice helps service many different channels inside of their brand (not just customer service).

The four cornerstones of social media monitoring are (1) Competitive Analysis, (2) Product Development, (3) Reputation Management and (4) Outreach.

If you happen to be a woman doing your dance in the midst of the nerd kingdom that is social media, you may or may not have noticed that we are a very small slice of the overall pie chart of geekdom.

This shouldn’t be news to anyone. The tech world has long been a boys club, and in general, boys like to hear what other boys are saying. But recently this point was brought home to me when I noticed this tweet:

 She’s referring to Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, who recently posted an article on CNN citing his favorite blogs to make you think, none of which are authored by women.

For our next post in the social media nonprofit series, I wanted to highlight one of the ways that the American Red Cross has been successful with their social media strategies. I recently stumbled across their website and discovered their “Holiday Mail for Heroes” campaign. I love the holidays, so it’s no surprise that I wanted to find out more. This great program allows people to send holiday cards to service members, veterans, and their families. Amy Grant is partnering with the Red Cross and Pitney Bowes to make the program a success and was at the special kick-off event on November 11th (Veteran’s Day). How is the Red Cross spreading the word out about such a great opportunity to thank our heroes? Why through social media of course!

Buttons and Banners

The “Holiday Mail for Heroes” campaign makes it really easy to spread the word to friends and family. You can grab buttons and web banners and place them on your own Facebook page, blog, website or other social networking site.                                                        

UPDATE 11/19: Keep reading for a quick how-to guide to posting to your Facebook profile.

Most people would no doubt lose their jobs if they spent half the working hours that I spend on Facebook. Luckily for me, working at a social media agency means that pretty much IS my job. So, as I was doing my job today, I came across something I've not yet seen: Facebook Fan Badges. I'm more than familar with Fan Page badges that creators of fan pages can use to promote their presence on Facebook across various other social channels. However, this new discovery sparked my interest. Here's what I was greeted with upon logging into Facebook and loading a page of which I am currently a fan:

Last week was the infamous Pubcon Internet and Social Media Marketing conference held in Las Vegas Nevada. Over 4,000 fellow Internet marketers each year descend on the bright city. This year, I had the chance to speak on a panel about Reputation Management and Monitoring. I was excited to see this year that they had added an extensive amount of panels discussing social media marketing tactics. If you think SEO and Social Media still don't belong together at Internet Marketing conferences, then you are living in the dark.

Below you will find my presentation I gave at the conference where I discussed how reputation monitoring works, specifically focusing on the details surrounding a heavily talked about term, such as Walmart in this example.

If you follow our blog, then you probably recall one of our most recent campaigns for Nature Made SAM-e Complete®: The Good Mood Gig. We had an overwhelming response, as over 800 folks applied, and the collective votes reached nearly 300,000. Thanks to everyone who applied and voted, we’ve enjoyed checking out your entries and essays.

Now, we’re highlighting our top 20 vote earners, who created videos to show off why they should be the ones to land the Good Mood Gig. You can (and should) go vote for one of these applicants, because it is going to be hard enough for us to decide which blogger will take over the duty of blogging his or her good mood. The second phase of voting starts today and will continue through December 7th.

Go to SAM-e.com to see all of the final candidates and vote for your favorite. Thanks again to all who applied and everyone who has voted so far. Check out the Official Rules and the FAQ for more info.

I'm a fan of Stephen King, even though I find some of his work to be a bit daunting and overwhelming, he is still one of the greatest literary giants of our time. There's really no denying that. His stories are often gruesome and bone-chilling (Cujo, Carrie, The Shining), and some are even heart wrenching and beautiful (Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption). Others are epic works that encompass entire lives and worlds (The Stand). Now, King has embraced the power of social media and adapted a new way of storytelling by sharing peices of his latest story, Under the Dome, all over the world. 5,196 pieces to be exact. The book itself can be bought on Amazon and other outlets on November 10th, but where's the fun in that? Nowhere's the fun, that's where.

Where the fun IS, however, is in the social experiment King-- and his people, I reckon-- are concocting. Basically the idea is to string together pieces of the novel that are scattered all over the internet (and beyond) and put them together in a readable format. Simple as that. But wait, there's more...

The Story

Under the Dome, at its core, is the tale of a village in Maine that is suddenly encased in a giant dome. The dome is a virtual forcefield, and no one can get in, or out. The story features over 100 characters, including town officials, kids, and even a few dogs. Under the Dome rings in at 336,114 words (or about 1200 pages) and is being touted as King's most epic work since The Stand.

Don't like the new Facebook news feed? There are pros and cons to it. Now you're less likely to miss out on big news, for example.

But if you don't like it, here's a 10-second change that anyone can do to change it back.

In one of my recent blog posts, I touched on the idea of social review tools and how much I believe in the idea of customer reviews. It sparked a fair amount of conversation about the power of reviews, especially negative reviews. I sort of touched on a similar topic when I wrote this blog post on how to deal with negative blog comments, however, negative reviews are a different kind of animal.

In order to illustrate a few best practices for negative reviews, I’ll use a personal example. My parents own a restaurant, which is, of course, subject to the reviews of customers online on sites like Yelp and Trip Advisor. Recently, my mother pointed out a post that had been left by a somewhat disgruntled customer who was upset about their policy of a mandatory 20% tip on meals paid for with a gift certificate. She wondered what the impact of this review might be, since potential customers were reading it.

Dear Owen,

Since you moved over from COO of Facebook to become CEO of MySpace, you’ve certainly made a lot of changes to the company. You've let one-third of the staff go. Your entire executive team is new. Reports are that you're removing walls between cubicles and hanging white boards.

That's all well and good, but the problem with your network is with your network. It's not the sales person, or the cubicle walls. We need to see physical changes to the way your network works. As a marketer that represents large brands who use social networks, here are my ten suggestions for reinventing MySpace--before it's too late.